Last Waltz 1

Author: Nitta Youka
Imprint: Hanaoto
Publisher: Houbunsha
ISBN: 4-8322-8079-1

Reviewed by Jeanne

Complications, complications. We have a new guy at the club, Ishii, with nice long hair and attitude out the wazoo. He's taking everyone's clients away from them except Takaaki's, cause he can't do that even if he tries. But no matter. He's gunning mainly for Shinkawa who humiliated him once except that Shinkawa doesn't know him from Adam. And meanwhile good 'ol Iwaki who would never ever harm his old club yeah sure *he* says, has opened a club in Shinjuku, the Rusty Nail, run by a guy called Kenzaki. And Ishii and Kenzaki are in cahoots somehow, kouhai and senpai-like, with all that that entails. The plot thickens.

Well yeah. I mean, this is a BL series and you just threw two new guys into the mix. Not that it's that simple, of course. (For one thing, both new guys are straight, and one at least has a full-time girlfriend.) It isn't that everyone is in love with everyone else, or that everyone is hot for everyone else. It's that the various emotions these guys feel towards and about the other guys all criss-cross each other like a complicated cat's cradle. I'm not sure that *anyone* is in love with anyone else, as we understand the word, but it's fascinating to watch the various cross-feelings rub against each other.

(Some spoilers here. Beware.)

We've got the cast straight? Big blond short-haired Shinkawa, kouhai to the impeccable no.2 Takaaki. Long dark-haired Iwaki, Takaaki's first lover and the one who got him into hosting. Short dark-haired vociferous Kenzaki, who also became a host because of Iwaki, and who always looks annoyed; and long brown-haired Ishii, who'll be something to write home about one of these days. OK? Now read on.

There's the half-hero worship half-something else that Shinkawa at first feels for Takaaki: my ideal, the perfect host, what I want to be. (Shortly turns into 'what I want to have,' in Shinkawa's case at least.) Takaaki feels the same hero-worship about Iwaki, even now- and Kenzaki feels it for Iwaki too. Which means Kenzaki hates Takaaki's guts, not from sexual jealousy but from dislike of how obsession with Takaaki demeans the ideal Iwaki. Ah, yes, that obsession. Learn this word (so I don't have to try translating it.) Akogare. Ah-ko-ga-ray. Longing, desiring, fascination: a being helplessly drawn to-ness. Very hard to get rid of, and natch Takaaki inspires it unwittingly in almost everyone. Watch them go down like bowling pins in book 1 of this series- Shinkawa, Iwaki, Uroshizaki...

Takaaki's the perfect host, Japanese sense, meaning he makes people fall in love with him without trying to do it. That's a host's job. Both Shinkawa and Iwaki are determined to 'have' the man, and do a little alpha-male butting of heads over him, even though one very much doubts Shinkawa would be happy with a Takaaki who really did belong to him. (Iwaki I'm not so sure. He comes out with the famous 'I want to be the only man you ever see' line. Those of us who cut our teeth on Arina Toshimi's psycho!Kurama yell 'Run for your life!' every time that one appears.) And perfect host Takaaki has his own akogare - for Iwaki (who dropped him flat and left him crying, and Takaaki *still* goes back to him?) and in an odd way for Shinkawa, only he doesn't ordinarily notice it with Shinkawa because Shinkawa's always there. But when he isn't...

Complicate the akogare with (learn this word too and half my work is done for me) urami- deep-seated grudge and sense of ill-usage towards someone you think has injured you in the past. Something about Japanese emotions. They do hate people for what they are- hate their guts, like we do, though in fact what they say they hate is their hair. (Kegirai- 'can't *stand* the man'.) But the cultural emphasis is much more on hating people for a reason, because of some injury they did that was the cause of your urami. This has the potential to be a healthy situation. There's not much you can do about someone who hates you for you, but you can always apologize for something you did. In practice of course people sit on their urami for a few years or so and then go postal- and the incident that gave us that phrase was a classic instance of urami at work.

So young Ishii has a major urami going against Shinkawa, and he doesn't care if he destroys Schnapps to get back at him. His pal Kenzaki has one going against Takaaki, and if you think that doesn't complicate Takaaki and Iwaki's love life, think again. Cause Kenzaki makes Ishii spend the night drinking with Takaaki so Takaaki can't go to Iwaki's and you know what happens to straight guys who get drunk next to the akogare-generator Takaaki? Yes. Evidently. Further details in vol 2.

Really major spoilers

Ishii is also a host at Rusty Nail. Kenzaki sends him off to Schnapps to destroy the place because he hates Takaaki's guts. Takaaki finds this out and goes to ask Iwaki if this was his idea. Somehow this turns into Takakaaki regretting that he stopped Shinkawa from leaving Schnapps to go work for Iwaki in vol 1, because it's stunted Shinkawa's development as a host. So next thing happens, Takaaki does a little demonstration of how Shinkawa will never be up to his level and Shinkawa quits Schnapps in order to go off and prove himself elsewhere so that (sigh) Takaaki will become his alone. You know, half the problem with these guys is they can't keep their private selves separate from their pro selves. Getting the guy you want is all bound up with 'I'm a better host than you are.' Change 'guy' to 'woman', substitute 'whore', and you may get an idea of how odd this seems to an outsider.

Shinkawa goes off to, where else, Iwaki's club. Kenzaki has a fit. He's the manager, and now Iwaki's going to bring in the guy who was his first choice as manager? And he hates Iwaki's obsession with the guys at Schnapps. And so... well, and so he tells Ishii to keep Takaaki away from Iwaki, while he deals with Iwaki himself. And if you want to know how straight Kenzaki deals with Iwaki's akogare, you must, as the old books say, read Last Waltz 2.)